Chapter 103

After November, the temperature difference gradually becomes larger. It is still over 30 degrees at noon, but only around 20 degrees at night. The weather is slowly getting cooler.

Su Yu looked at the weather forecast after the news broadcast and said, "It's still over 30 degrees here during the day, and it's already snowing in the north. Our country is really big, even the weather varies so much."

Su Yuanzheng said, "As the weather gets cooler, fewer people are drinking porridge. Should we suspend the self-service porridge service like we did last year and increase the supply of braised food and Laoyou pork offal?"

"But it seems a bit wasteful if we only use our store for takeout."

Su Miao thought about it and felt that it was convenient to have a shop. Since few people drink porridge in winter, he might as well switch to rice!

Su Miao thought about it and thought about the concept of boxed lunches that was popular among the working class in his previous life. If he wanted to prepare many dishes for diners to choose from, he might not have enough staff to handle it. It would be better to stick to the restaurant’s specialty.

"Dad, why don't we change the self-service porridge to braised food rice or pork offal rice? There's no need to prepare so many side dishes. We can just stir-fry more vegetables and cook some rice. The braised food and pork offal are already prepared and we can make it into a set meal."

"Set meal? How do I get it?"

"One serving of rice, one spoonful of pork offal or an equal amount of braised food, plus some vegetables. You can fry two side dishes to go with the rice and place them on the table. Customers can add more by themselves."

"That's a great idea! Customers who are coming home from get off work or school need to eat right away. This way, we can save them from losing customers. The meals are all ready-made, so we don't have to fry them. We can just serve them and eat them. But how do we pair the braised food?"

"We have agreed on a fixed quantity that will satisfy our customers. When the meal is ready, they can choose two braised dishes to share. They can dine in or take away. Our takeaway porridge boxes are not suitable, but they are good for rice and vegetables, and they can keep the food warm."

Su Yu also thought it was a good idea: "When the time comes, put the rice in the thermos bucket, so it will always be hot when guests come over. You can wash the vegetables and stir-fry a few pots first. After they finish eating, I will go in and stir-fry more. It only takes a few minutes. Freshly stir-fried vegetables are the best!"

Now that we have agreed on a plan, we need to start preparing and use the weekend to do some shopping.

First, they went to choose the tableware for dine-in. Since it was a set meal, Su Miao felt that it was not appropriate to use the bowl he had used to drink porridge before, and the small plate was not big enough to hold the dishes.

So I bought forty large round enamel plates. They were a little more concave than plates, and not as deep as bowls. They were painted with the most common pattern of blooming flowers and prosperity.

This kind of enamel tableware and cups are particularly common in this era. They are light and sturdy, and will not break no matter how hard you drop them. It seems that one plate can be used for three generations, and the plate will still be there even after the person is gone.

The previous take-out boxes were bought from the Ning County Railway Bureau. Since most people take the braised food home to add to their dishes, they do not come with chopsticks.

But if the lunch boxes are not provided with chopsticks, people will not be able to eat out for convenience, so Su Miao plans to find a new supplier of take-out boxes, and it would be best if he can find disposable chopsticks.

Disposable chopsticks were originally widely popularized in Japan. In the 1980s, a debate broke out in Japan about whether disposable chopsticks would destroy forests.

Later, in order to save costs, Japanese chopstick manufacturers moved their production to Northeast China, and the use of disposable chopsticks became popular in China.

Since then, as domestic demand continued to grow, China became the world's largest producer of disposable chopsticks in the 1990s.

But they walked around the market but couldn't find it. Maybe there were too few distributors. Just when they were thinking of moving to another market to continue searching, Su Miao had an idea and used the shop's phone to send a message to Little Fatty's pager.

There were no mobile phones now, so even if you sent a text message to a pager, you had to wait for a reply by the landline.

Fortunately, Brother Xiaopang was quick and called within a few minutes.

"Hello? Is that Miaomiao? What's wrong?"

"Brother Xiaopang, I have something to ask you. Do you know where I can buy disposable lunch boxes and disposable chopsticks? They're like the takeout boxes we use in our store. Disposable chopsticks are wooden chopsticks that you can throw away after one use."

"Oh no! I thought it was something else, I already have it here! If you are free, just come over, I'm at the company!"

Without further ado, Su Yu rode his tricycle there. It took about twenty minutes from the city's largest trading market to Xiaopang Ge's company. It was already noon when he arrived.

There were only two employees on duty in the company on Sunday. When they heard that they were looking for Little Fatty, one of them took them directly to the manager's office on the second floor.

You know what, Brother Xiaopang’s office is really nice. It has a large space and bright lighting. Looking out the window you can see the bustling city center. There is a set of sofas and coffee tables for entertaining guests.

At this time, the fat boy was sitting behind a large desk gnawing on a roast duck leg. Behind him was a painting of a roc spreading its wings.

"Brother Xiaopang, I'm here!" Su Miao knocked on the door.

The fat boy raised his head and said with a sizzling mouth, "Please sit down, please sit down. Please sit down quickly. Wait for me for two minutes and finish this duck leg first!"

"No hurry, no hurry, take your time eating."

Little Fatty was one of the oldest customers of the Su family. He had helped the family a lot and was close friends with Su Miao regardless of age difference. He often came to the store to chat with her and was very familiar with all of them.

So they were not very restrained when they entered the office, and Su Miao even ran to the window to look at the scenery.

The fat boy finished the duck leg in no time, wiped his mouth and hands with a handkerchief, and took out a cake of tea from the drawer with two big "Pu'er" written on it.

There was a complete set of clean tea sets on the coffee table, and the fat boy poured hot water from the kettle to make tea.

"This time I went to Shenzhen, I met a lot of different people, including many Chaoshan bosses. They always had tea when discussing business, and every time I drank it, my stomach was full of water. Here we drink tea directly by pouring it into the cup and drinking it, but they are very particular. They use a small pot to brew little by little, and they can drink it for most of the day."

Su Yuanzheng took the small teacup and took a shallow sip before it was empty, but the fragrance of the tea filled his entire mouth and nose. "I don't know much about tea, but this tea is really fragrant."

"Hehe, I thought it smelled good too, so I brought back two cakes when I came back. By the way, Uncle Yuan, I heard there's a kind of tea in your hometown that's pretty good too?"

"We have wild Gu Liao tea in our hometown. I can't say whether it tastes good or not, but it's good for the stomach. People in my hometown don't take medicine when they have stomach upset. Chewing raw Gu Liao tea can cure it. Next time I go back, I'll bring some for you."

"Okay, okay, thank you, Uncle Yuan. Miaomiao, do you want to drink Pu'er?"

Su Miao walked back from the window and sat down on the sofa, shaking his head and saying, "I won't drink it. I won't be able to sleep at night if I drink tea."

The fat boy slapped his head and said, "Oh! I forgot you were still a child!"